Apple iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/09/apple-unveils-iphone-15-pro-and-iphone-15-pro-max/

by jnieminen • 3 years ago

251 496 3 years ago

gruturo3• 3 years ago

It looks like the one feature I was more eagerly awaiting is there: It can drive a display through the USB-C cable (https://www.apple.com/iphone-15-pro, scroll down to "Gigablast your gigabits" and then click on "Explore Connectivity".

Looking forward (assuming it will work like the iPad Pro) to not carrying a laptop with me when I know there is a USB-C or HDMI (with an adapter) screen available at my destination. Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and I'm set. No more syncing with the phone - I am using the phone itself.

gessha• 3 years ago

I really wish Apple let's you develop apps on Linux/iPad/iPhone.

Jtsummers3• 3 years ago

One third of your wish is already answered. You can develop apps on the iPad.

larme• 3 years ago

I use blink[0] with a 40% keyboard to develop linux program on a vps.

If you want to do programming without wireless interenet, another option is to connect a raspberry pi zero 2w (with usb gadget mode enabled) to the usb c port using a single usb cable. Then the rpi zero will share a ethernet network with iOS device. Then you can use blink (again) to mosh to raspberrypi.local to do the development on the pi.

The reason that I don't do it on android with termux is that there's no high quality terminal emulator like blink on android.

[0] https://blink.sh

konradb• 3 years ago

Would be interesting to see how it can use a larger screen. Definitely the phone is powerful enough for most tasks.

rcarmo4• 3 years ago

I don't think Apple will ever do that, to be honest. It took nearly a decade for them to get keyboard support working properly on the iPad, and they have zero incentive to copy Samsung DeX given they prefer to sell 3 different devices to people.

What they will do is allow you to record video directly to storage devices and preview photos on large displays as they are taken.

ricardobeat2• 3 years ago

This is already possible.

Xylakant• 3 years ago

I don't think Apple will ever do that, to be honest.

Apple sells lightning->HDMI adapters that could drive a display at 1080p and it’s been possible to pair a keyboard with your iPhone. I know folks that used that setup for writing longer texts while traveling.

Given that a lot of the infrastructure was already there, I wouldn’t be surprised if it trickles in over time.

You can see the same trajectory with iPads: At first they could mirror screens only, but with the recent changes to stage manager, they’re a pretty full-featured laptop if you use a keyboard and trackpad. My 11” pro is capable of driving a huge widescreen.

ako• 3 years ago

I regularly use my bluetooth mechanical keyboard (nuphy air 75) with both ipad and iphone. Works fine. Much better than the keyboards sold by apple. What are you missing?

paxys6• 3 years ago

I bought an Android phone that transforms into a desktop computer when you plug in a USB-C monitor, and the entire experience is mind blowing. You can even connect a bluetooth keyboard and use the phone screen as a touchpad. Unfortunately I don't think Apple is going to go in that direction anytime soon.

automatoney• 3 years ago

Ooooh more info please! Which phone? And what's the experience like? Are you using it for development at all or is it more things like word? I wanna know all about this setup, since I'm definitely going to need to upgrade my phone soon.

MuffinFlavored3• 3 years ago

Can you do a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse?

bsimpson• 3 years ago

This sounds like Motorola in about 2012.

dwayne_dibley• 3 years ago

I'm kind of doing this with iPad, and microsoft remote desktop. it allows me to just carry an ipad and be able to access my CAD machine in work. Love it.

colinjoy• 3 years ago

assuming it will work like the iPad Pro

I doubt they would sneak in such a feature without at least mentioning it. I expect this to be even more limited, perhaps just tethered airplay for better resolution.

rcarmo4• 3 years ago

It’s not even that. It’s just direct storage access for recording and image previews.

ksec5• 3 years ago

I hope this is true. Even with a Keyboard and mouse and I can browse Internet with it would be great.

masklinn4• 3 years ago

FWIW keyboards have worked OK all along, I regularly use one of my wireless keyboards switched over to the phone to type longer stuff, though the autocorrect gets more annoying in that case.

Mice are a lot more annoying, because they're part of the assistive devices, so you need to enable Assistive Touch, and then you either have the mouse connected or the Assistive Touch menu taking space on the display, which is probably not useful if you're abled. If Assistive Touch is disabled, the mouse "works" but you don't get a visible pointer which is completely stupid.

Possibly connecting to an external display won't have that issue, or iOS 17 will make the experience a bit better for non-assistive mousing.

chx3• 3 years ago

edit: nevermind

zamadatix4• 3 years ago

You might want to check your math :). It's ~10 gbps by both measures.

NavinF3• 3 years ago

I don't see anything about displays on that page. All I see is "iPhone 15 Pro lets you shoot ProRes video directly to external storage, so you can quickly switch drives and keep your iPhone camera rolling on set. Want to capture slow motion Hollywood style? Now you can record ProRes 4K at 60 fps to an external SSD."

I highly doubt the 15 Pro can drive a display. In the unlikely case that it can, you'll be limited to very low res. Why would they limit USB to 10gbps if the PHY can push the ~32gbps eDP bandwidth required for a modern display?

MarkMarine• 3 years ago

“ Now you can connect USB‑C gear like thumb drives, fast external storage, 4K displays, and microphones.”

Right in the linked site

gruturo3• 3 years ago

The "Explore Connectivity" modal window you can open in the "Gigablast your gigabits" (meh) section, as I quoted in my original post, has this block of text:

USB‑Convenient.

Now you can connect USB‑C gear like thumb drives, fast external storage, 4K displays, and microphones. And you can charge Apple Watch or AirPods from your iPhone.9

Havoc2• 3 years ago

No more syncing with the phone - I am using the phone itself.

That sounds about as productive as the never ending stream of “I tried switching to an iPad for dev” blogs

Gareth3214• 3 years ago

But they'll be able to write so much in the text editor with their bluetooth keyboard!

v7p1Qbt1im• 3 years ago

Would be cool once they would allow geforce now. Plug in phone to display, connect mouse/keyboard and play AAA games at 4K60+.

AceJohnny2• 3 years ago

Hmm, I was doing that on an iPad last winter, albeit with an XBox One controller.

qingcharles• 3 years ago

I have to go this way with some apps, because the PC/Mac desktop versions are unavailable (banking apps), or are missing significant numbers of features (CapCut). So I have to use a smartphone as my primary work terminal, which is impossible if you just use the touchscreen.

firecall3• 3 years ago

Oh that's interesting!

LOL - I have to get my Apple news from tidbits in comments nowadays as I cannot stand to watch the saccharine overproduced videos that Apple make.

I used to love an Apple Keynote... but now, they are a huge turnoff.

highwaylights2• 3 years ago

The most interesting part of this to me isn't the titanium or the camera (impressive as it looks), it's the GPU.

They made a point of saying that the GPU had been completely ground-up re-designed, and I assume they're intending to keep scaling that up over the next few iterations.

They didn't talk about it for very long, but that the phone is able to convincingly run AAA games, even at playable if not great frame-rates, is really impressive. This puts the iPhone up against devices like the Switch and Steam Deck for a lot of users. Granted, they don't have Nintendo's games, and they don't have Steam's massive back catalogue, but looking forward it does make a dedicated handheld gaming system harder to justify, or at least makes the phone easier to justify if you're not buying both.

It also makes me really interested to see where Apple is going with Apple TV and the Mac. With the game porting toolkit already announced (and the results people are already getting just using it directly to run Windows games), it seems like Apple really could eat at least some portion of the gaming market by already having a handheld (phone), console (Apple TV), and gaming PC (Mac) ready to go in the next few years.

I'm expecting the new M3 Macs next month to lean really heavily into discussing the GPU advances and (hopefully) announce a lot more support from big studios to bring more games to the Mac.

imbusy111• 3 years ago

Pointing out the obvious, but the iPhone only has the touch input, and no physical controls, so it's not going to work as a serious gaming device.

cloin• 3 years ago

It does however pair very nicely with popular console controllers

jonahhorowitz• 3 years ago

It works really well with a PS5 controller, and they make controllers that snap on the sides too.

KoftaBob• 3 years ago

Well yeah but that's a trivial problem to solve by just getting a case/attachment with gaming controls on it, like the Razer Kishi.

basisword• 3 years ago

This applies to the Switch too. It’s touch screen but has external controls (they detach and you can use the kickstand). iOS supports gaming controllers so you could use it in the same way as the Switch (albeit it doesn’t have a built in kickstand).

sbuk• 3 years ago

Didn't an infamous CEO say similar about the 'missing' physical keyboard and not being a good business device?

ErneX2• 3 years ago

You can use modern gamepads with it, like the PS5 DualSense.

theshrike7910• 3 years ago

Serious or not, but for example Diablo Immortal is mobile only and it reportedly brings in $1M _daily_.

So some people are seriously playing it with no physical controls. =)

For "serious" mobile gamers there are devices like the Razer Kishi: https://www.razer.com/mobile-controllers/razer-kishi-v2

On this site people tend to forget that there actually are people under 30 whose only computing device is a phone. They use it for everything.

_hzw2• 3 years ago

And they will likely have to enable side-loading in the EU next year, which will allow us to play almost all retro games through emulation.

moritzwarhier2• 3 years ago

Maybe Apple will embrace this then.

Maybe even making deals to compete with emulators + pirated ROMs.

Just fantasizing a bit here... thinking of Apple-approved N64, GameCube, GBA, PSP, even PS4 emulators with licensed games for a somewhat medium to high price tag - why not?

summarity• 3 years ago

To me this is a signal of reusing the GPU innovations that were required for the Vision Pro in currently available products and then finding a martket for it (gaming)

sroussey4• 3 years ago

Eh, the GPU changes with ray tracing were supposed to land last year as part of A16 but heat issues required them to pull it.

The bright side is that if you are on a yearly release cadence then you don’t let one thing slip the whole SOC (assuming, as Apple does, that you have a risk on and risk off design going simultaneously).

Your are right on that the Vision Pro will have a M3 not M2.

saagarjha2• 3 years ago

Vision Pro is based on the A15 SoC.

paxys6• 3 years ago

Is it though? The promise of gaming on iPhone (and mobile gaming in general) has been taken over and destroyed by freemium games whose only goal is to push microtransactions. What is a marginally better GPU going to accomplish? Help games sell me their "bundle of gems" faster?

Developers simply do not have the incentive to build any other kinds of games when the current crop of addictive shovelware is so damn profitable. The sad part is that Apple encourages this practice because it is easy money for them (via their 30% cut). The problem needs to be fixed by better quality control and transaction/gambling rules, not a faster processor.

mcphage4• 3 years ago

I think there will always be a market for freemium games, because it's nice to try things without having to put money down. But I think the freemium market can co-exist with a premium game market. Like, the premium game market still exists and still is going strong, no reason it couldn't live on mobile devices also.

GeekyBear11• 3 years ago

The promise of gaming on iPhone (and mobile gaming in general) has been taken over and destroyed by freemium games whose only goal is to push microtransactions.

Wasn't that a reaction to users who refused to pay for games and just sideloaded them instead?

I can remember there being five dollar games in the early days of iOS that sold well. I can also remember developers trying games that had ads until you paid to remove them.

gretch2• 3 years ago

This is a really short sighted and defeatist view on the potential of mobile gaming. Mobile gaming started before iPhones, and it will be around probably for the rest of human civilization.

There is no way 1 generation of games can "take over and destroy" the "promise of gaming" because there are no restrictions on what future innovators can do with the tools and the platforms. The existence of some bad games doesn't preclude future good games.

As an example, my favorite mobile game is Slay the Spire

xienze• 3 years ago

Yeah, exactly. They’ve been playing up how the latest iPad/iPhone/etc. is just as powerful as <some previous generation console> for years now. And I don’t doubt that. But it doesn’t do much good when barely anything approaching AAA gaming shows up on the platform. The potential is wasted on lots of garbage freemium games.

carlosjobim2• 3 years ago

Before smart phones became something for everybody, 99% of "gamers" would game on lottery tickets, casinos, slot machines and such. They are still the majority and they want their slot machines, where they don't have to think or learn to progress. Computer / video game tropes are just an aesthetic to skin a slot machine on your phone.

wmf4• 3 years ago

Apple's new gaming strategy (as of today) is ports of console games. It's not worth developing good games specifically for mobile but that's not necessary if iDevices can run console ports.

absoluteunit1• 3 years ago

I really wish micro transactions were made illegal in applications on the app stores…and video games in general. It encourages additive behaviour and lowers the quality of games as the purpose becomes to make the additive micro transaction aspect as addictive as possible.

If some new policy changed this, I think we’d see a whole new wave of higher quality games

jacobr1• 3 years ago

They built Arcade+ in part to provide alternative to microtransaction games.

mdavidn• 3 years ago

Early mobile games were such a delight. I have fond memories of Angry Birds, Plants vs Zombies, Cut the Rope, Flight Control, Threes, Monument Valley, Bad Piggies...

But then predatory freemium games like Clash of Clans and newer replacements for Angry Birds and Plants vs Zombies burned me out. They eliminated any desire I had to invest time or money or attention into mobile games. Popular freemium games in the App Store now bury any new gems. It's quite disappointing.

A better GPU isn't going to help the situation.

nebula88044• 3 years ago

At least on a positive note: an iPhone + Dev account + some tiny controller addon can equal a great pocket emulation machine on the go. If someone can design a nice controller add on, we can ditch the Chinese pocket gameboy/switch/other extra devices you dont need.

It so absurd: We need to carry the device anyway since its a phone, it has a great GPU and there are thousands of existing great games that have been created that the device can easily run. The only problem has always been the stupidity of the code not being available to run on this device. :/

jordanmorgan10• 3 years ago

I mean…I don’t entirely agree, they’ve created an entire service to avoid the problems you are describing with Apple Arcade.

armchairhacker• 3 years ago

Developers simply do not have the incentive to build any other kinds of games when the current crop of addictive shovelware is so damn profitable.

Personally, I don’t have the incentive because 1) paid mobile gaming isn’t a big market (see: top paid apps being the exact same years-old, curated Apple apps not having many reviews/downloads), 2) there aren’t many options to develop games targeting iOS which also target Android and Windows/Linux (at least if you want to use Swift), and 3) Apple could remove my game at any notice and I don’t get 30% of the revenue.

If Apple introduces a way to easily port desktop games to iOS, or even develop entirely new games which can run on Linux and mac and iPhone, I think we’d see a lot more iOS games. Maybe the new GPU isn’t only faster but also supports Vulkan/wgpu better?

Cloudef2• 3 years ago

Its not only the low quality games, mobile controls also suck for gaming.

enos_feedler• 3 years ago

One of the main benefits of Apple Arcade was to recognize this problem and carve out a space for games that do not suffer from these issues (while making services revenue at the same time). I think it worked pretty well. It doesn't have the AAA though.

Hammershaft3• 3 years ago

Between terrible incentives created by Apple's cut structure, and Apple's disregard for backwards compatibility, mobile indie devs never stood a chance. Rami from Vlambeer said it well.

“You earn $3 and then you update it for the next 10 years. If you’re making free-to-play games, if you keep earning money with a game, yeah, that’s a great model because you can make more money by updating.”

Ismail pointed to Vlambeer’s “Ridiculous Fishing,” which won a number of awards from gaming publications and Apple.

“‘Ridiculous Fishing’ is never going to make more money,” he said. “Yeah, some new people might buy it, but we made our money with ‘Ridiculous Fishing’ in 2013 and that money is spent, It’s spent on ‘Luftrausers.’ It’s spent on ‘Nuclear Throne.’ If somebody upgrades their phones to the new iPhone. Yeah. You have ‘Ridiculous Fishing’ in your account, Yeah you paid $3 for it. Yeah, it’s broken.”

That’s what caused the last major update Vlambeer did for the game. A major change by Apple in 2017 that switched from 32-bit to 64-bit apps, breaking a slew of content on their phones … including “Ridiculous Fishing.”

“All games broke,” he said, “Every game that wasn’t programmed for it broke. We updated ‘Ridiculous Fishing’ then but it feels like a mistake almost. It feels like, OK it’s 2018 and this game that we made money with that somebody bought in 2013 is now broken outside of our fault. We didn’t change anything. We didn’t break the game. We didn’t introduce a bug, but this continuous ecosystem that Apple has created, that comes with you with every new phone, broke it. “

Ismail said that either Apple has to start designing for backward compatibility support on their end or that people are going to have to get used to the idea of games dying and disappearing.

“Some of the best ios games from 2010 are gone,” he said. “Those developers, they don’t exist anymore. They went out of business. They split up. They started a new thing and they just don’t have the money or time to do it.”

https://variety.com/2019/gaming/features/android-ios-apple-g...

faeriechangling3• 3 years ago

Never had much trouble finding quality phone games which don’t use this model. Some of the most popular mobile games in the world like PUBG are not like this.

gloryjulio2• 3 years ago

The problem is apple actively working against the game developers, or they just ignore the market completely. See the example of vulkan, and deprecation of 32bit games. It doesn't matter how good the hardware is. If the platform is not supporting the games and all they have are the occasional courting of the some of the games, the games won't come to the apple platform for free.

Also they are already making the mobile gaming money which is already lucrative. Are they also committing enough to the 'conventional' gaming?

thaanpaa2• 3 years ago

The App Store is the real issue. Apple's antipathy towards developers is perplexing. The number of stories I've heard about companies having problems due to some interpretation of their policies is ridiculous. There are even horror stories about businesses going bankrupt simply because Apple decided they were in violation of something and banned them from the App Store entirely. I mean, no game company wants to spend millions on a game only to have all of their games pulled because one of them was too similar to someone else's game or something (according to some Apple reviewer with way too much power!).

kaba09• 3 years ago

Metal predates vulkan, and the latter is mostly used on Android only. It is not particularly well-liked (too low-level for most things), also.

danhor2• 3 years ago

AAA-like titles were previously tried at the beginning of the App Store, mostly ports of older titles. Most Indie Games would also run fine on most Smartphones, but never succeeded. Stuff that sold great on the Switch. I think the lack of "official" nice, high-quality, hasslefree Gamepad, continuing cooling-issues and especially the expectation of consumers for low prices on Apps results in the Market for "real" games on Phones remaining very small.

Apple tried to counteract it with Apple Arcade, but that hasn't worked out.

ghaff2• 3 years ago

Apple tried to counteract it with Apple Arcade, but that hasn't worked out.

I'm not really a gamer but I get Arcade as part of a bundle and it doesn't really wow me. I sometimes look at "Best of..." lists and try a few out on a plane flight and I'm mostly meh.

radlad• 3 years ago

Just gonna throw this out there... for me, one of the main reasons I don't play games on my phone, is because it will absolutely tank the battery life.

A dedicated device has the benefit of having a sole purpose: gaming. If I kill the battery, I just can't play anymore games. I can still take calls, browse the web, and text my partner.

wincy• 3 years ago

There are a few major missteps Apple made over the years that make me hesitant to buy any games on iPhone or iPad.

With my Steam catalog I can download something I bought in 2004 and still be confident I can play it. I spent $20 on Monster Hunter for iPhone and one day iOS updated and it just didn’t work anymore.

My Switch games will assumably work until the console dies.

Another reason I completely stopped buying games on iOS was when The Binding of Isaac was suddenly delisted from the App Store. I never got a refund or anything, and because of this new versions of Binding of Isaac aren’t compatible with Macs either. I have hundreds of hours played in that game and it’s ridiculous that Apple censored it as “depicting child abuse”.

mortenjorck2• 3 years ago

I don’t know if this is still the case, but for a long time, your game would get rejected from the App Store if it required an external controller to play. And yet being able to design games around that baseline is critical for triple-A.

I’m super curious to see what they’ve done with this current–gen, mainline Assassin‘s Creed game coming to iPhone: there is no way the core gameplay of that franchise could translate to touch controls, so either Apple dropped the requirement, some poor team had the doomed project of building an abysmal fallback touch control scheme, or they implemented some kind of semi-automated scheme for touch that makes traversal and combat less interactive.

ThatPlayer2• 3 years ago

It's hard to charge for full priced AAA-games too. There's still plenty of good ports on mobile. Games like Civ VI and Minecraft, but my friends who have a console or PC would rather buy it on mobile. Even if it was a reduced price, which Civ VI is.

turtlebits• 3 years ago

People have been saying that Mac gaming is around the corner for years now. GPU upgrades are the least exiting part of new iPhones. I have zero faith that they move the gaming needle, especially on iPhones.

The most exciting thing for Mac gaming is probably the Game porting toolkit.

thaanpaa2• 3 years ago

I'm not sure they have. When Macs came with Intel processors, everyone who wanted to play games on their Mac just booted into Windows for gaming, so there wasn't much pressure to make them work on the MacOS side. Because Bootcamp no longer works, Apple is under increased pressure to improve game performance.

dimitrios1• 3 years ago

I have zero faith that they move the gaming needle

My faith is placed in the fact that they have been pouring resources that amount close to billions on making gaming a thing on iPhones and Macs.

As a long time Mac and iPhone gamer, I have seen slow and steady incremental progress. I'm personally excited for the new GPU.

Besides, I think they get the benefit of the doubt at this point. This is Apple, not Google, after all.

ErneX2• 3 years ago

I think the M3 Macs will start to come out in 2024.

aaomidi• 3 years ago

iPhones are useless for AAA games unless they open the platform up more.

One of the reasons stadia failed is that gamers that spend the most do not want to keep rebuying games. Apple seems to expect people to also keep rebuying games. Just. No.

lofaszvanitt3• 3 years ago

Yeah, very good for your eyesight.

falcolas10• 3 years ago

I recommend reading glasses, they reduce the eyestrain from using up close devices.

stephc_int133• 3 years ago

Most smartphones are already faster than the Switch. The quality of games on a platform is not directly related to its technical capabilities or SDK, but to the business model and platform incentives.

Apple has fueled a race-to-the-bottom followed by an almost forced transition to f2p, and they benefited immensely in the process (30%), but I think that most gamers and indie devs are not satisfied.

iLoveOncall• 3 years ago

The quality of games on a platform is not directly related to its technical capabilities or SDK, but to the business model and platform incentives.

And also (mostly) the ergonomics.

Comparing a phone whose main purpose is definitely not gaming (at least the iPhone, I know there are some gaming-first phones) to a handheld console will always make the former look pathetic for this use-case.

The_Colonel• 3 years ago

I remember being completely impressed by my Note 3 (10 years ago almost exactly) playing games like Dead Trigger 2 and NFS: Underground. From then on, GPU performance / graphics on these tiny displays seemed good enough for me with only minor subjective improvements.

I'll second another comment, that another big challenge is the simple lack of ergonomics on any phone.

TheOtherHobbes• 3 years ago

It seems so immensely cynical. The latest-and-best Apple Event PR is in a car crash with the reality - from a gaming POV, the iPhone is a platform for user addiction.

I've been watching people around me and the amount of time everyone seems to spend tapping away at a phone, head down, is like something out of a dystopian movie.

The game addiction market must be worth billions to Apple. For all the environmental and other ad copy, there doesn't seem to be any concern about the mental and psychological effects of creating an ecosystem that knowingly relies on exploitative behaviour modification.

I also think the colour scheme is quite cynical. Pastel shades on the base model for the - let's say - less technically-oriented users. Strong blacks, whites, and metallics for the hard-core performance nerds who want that Pro tag.

There's something regressive about it all.

bradgessler2• 3 years ago

I question if Apple really cares about or is serious about gaming. My impression is they use it as an excuse to showcase hardware improvements since games are happy to soak up pretty much any hardware that's thrown at it.

That seems to be where their concern for gaming stops. There is Apple Arcade, but it feels like the least amount they could do for the size of their company.

I do think they care about it over the longer-term, particularly in light Vision Pro and their overall AR strategy.

philistine3• 3 years ago

Apple is making 30%, just like all the console makers and Steam, on every single game transaction on iPhone.

What you're forgetting, and pushing aside, is that the mobile gaming market is as big as the traditional gaming market. All the phone games make as much money as all the consoles and PC gaming together. Apple, with its command of all the valuable phone customers, is pulling an estimated 14 billion dollars in 2021 in mobile gaming. So Apple is very dumb if they don't care about 14 billion in annual services revenue.

What you're thinking is that traditional gaming is big-boy gaming and where the big bucks are. The growth market is mobile gaming, with the other segments being stagnant outside of big hits. The reality is that Apple is a bigger gaming company, by revenue, than Microsoft or Sony, is controlling the growth sector, and is thinking accordingly. They have financed all on their own a new GPU generation for their phone and justified it as a need for gaming and gaming alone. Those other companies need partners, like AMD or Nvidia, to make them GPUs.

https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights...

dahwolf2• 3 years ago

That currently seems to be the case, but it's a puzzling strategy.

It's a digital company that is trying to increase revenue with services instead of just hardware.

How can you ignore gaming whilst offering your own streaming service? The gaming market is many multiples in size of all of Hollywood.

kaba09• 3 years ago

Based on the last two events, they increasingly invest more and more money into games. And to be honest, it absolutely makes sense — apple’s biggest competitor in many areas is themselves: people use their iphones for many many years. So it does makes sense to invest into services as well.

salil999• 3 years ago

I could totally see Apple turning the iPhone into a Nintendo Switch type device. You can connect it to your Apple TV (maybe even wirelessly) and stream games + play with a controller. The HW is definitely impressive.

3cats-in-a-coat2• 3 years ago

It also shows the direction the M series, and I'm frankly happy with what they've shipped this year. Solid strategy, design and engineering.

klausa2• 3 years ago

I'm expecting the new M3 Macs next month to lean really heavily into discussing the GPU advances and (hopefully) announce a lot more support from big studios to bring more games to the Mac.

Assuming the trend of iPhone Ax chips showing up in Macs holds up, this would be late 2024 / early 2025 Macs and M4, not M3.

M2 is based based on A15, M3 is expected to be based on A16, M4 would be A17.

wmf4• 3 years ago

No, all the rumors say M3 is based on A17.

trumbitta22• 3 years ago

Serious gaming on iPhone destroys the battery in 1 year, 2 tops, tho.

theshrike7910• 3 years ago

How about serious gaming on a Samsung or Google device?

yakz• 3 years ago

I don't think they care about Switch or other consoles, really. Switch sales are nothing compared to what they already sell for non-gaming systems.

You'll be able to play the same AAA games on your desktop Mac, your Macbook, your iPhone, your iPad, and your Apple Vision Pro (on a virtual gigantic screen), locally on the device with no WAN streaming required. That will be a relatively large market of people with money to spend, hard to ignore.

Atotalnoob• 3 years ago

Apple has been over exaggerating their GPU performance for a few years now.

I'll believe their GPU is decent when I see it

firecall3• 3 years ago

I'm with you on the interest in M3 Macs!

Be interesting to see how the new iPhone 15 Pro benchmarks on single-core and GPU.

That should be a leading indicator on what we can expect from the new M3!

dcow• 3 years ago

Granted, they don't have Nintendo's games

Didn't Nintendo appear on stage at the 2016 keynote event to announce Nintendo's foray into mobile gaming (on 3rd party hardware, anyway) with Super Mario Run? And didn't Apple add native support for the Switch Pro and Joycon controllers to iOS 16 last year? Nintendo has always hated being in the hardware business...

chemmail• 3 years ago

Unfortunately, PC games, and most "AAA" titles are so shit lately, i just don't bother anymore. I just play the same game even while beefing up my PC. They even destroy amazing games like the old CoD Warzone. All trash now.

filoleg2• 3 years ago

You are saying this as we are having one of the best years in gaming in a long time, and it includes both indies and AAA.

Baldur's Gate 3, Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, some amazing remakes (Metroid Prime: Remastered, Resident Evil 4, Dead Space), Street Fighter 6 (which was loved by the community upon release unlike SF5, which had to be iterated on for a bit of time before becoming decent), Hi-Fi Rush, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, Pikmin 4, Armored Core 6, Blasphemous 2, Star Wars: Jedi Survivor. I even ommitted quite a few that are a bit controversial or not "amazing", like Starfield or Hogwarts Legacy.

And that's only off the top of my head, with a good chunk of the year left to go with hitters like Alan Wake 2, Cyberpunk rework+expansion, Spiderman 2, MGS Collection vol1, and Cities Skylines 2 on the horizon.

There is no shame in losing interest in gaming, but claiming that "most AAA titles are so shit lately", all while I don't even remember the last time we had a year so chock full of amazing games, is a bit questionable.

fsckboy• 3 years ago

it's the GPU

hmmm... i want an app that uses geolocation to have my iPhone start to mine bitcoin whenever it's plugged in to a charger that's not in a location where I pay for the electricity

"mind if I charge my phone?"

"you again!? get out!"

simonebrunozzi• 3 years ago

I also expect Apple to become much more serious about gaming. They might even see gaming as an important item in their balance sheet in a few years time. They have the hardware, and the Vision Pro might need gaming to break even and turn a profit.

bestham• 3 years ago

The M1 closely mirrored the A14 Bionic from the iPhone 12 (Pro), M2 the A15 Bionic from the iPhone 13 (Pro) and this the M3 “should” mirror the A16 Bionic from the iPhone 14 Pro / iPhone 15. If this continues we won’t have the new ray tracing GPU until M4.

rjknight• 3 years ago

Yes, but the A16 was a stopgap release, which only happened because Apple has to release a new iPhone CPU every year. The M-series does not update as frequently, and so it seems reasonable to imagine that the M3 is of the same "generation" as the A17.

geon• 3 years ago

If Apple wants the iphone to be a serious alternative for gaming, they need official controller accessories. Something like Nintendo's joycons.

Relying on touch controls limits gaming to low pace, imprecise casual/idle games.

quitit• 3 years ago

Also interesting was the large number of Neutral engine cores.

These two together seem to be very much about enhancing AI and Siri to be mostly on-device (something which they already started on).

A frequent complaint I read on HN is "why aren't there LLM based assistants as yet from any vendor" - but the answer to this is straightforward, it's not realistic to deploy cloud-based LLM at Siri-size user bases. Most queries also don't need LLM-style responses. (Also the rapid development of the field means that processing requirements are rapidly decreasing.)

In a prior keynote Apple noted that Siri was the most used assistant in the world. I don't have 3rd party data to support that, but it's a big enough claim that we could take their word on it just for conjecture purposes about the processing power needed to deploy LLM-based Siri.

So if we're going to see LLM-based usability enhancements to Siri, both in the types of data it's allowed to work with and enabling natural, context-driven interactions. That will have to be fully on device, and ultimately that will be a better experience for users as internet connectivity is an unreasonable barrier for such interactions (especially as it can stutter natural-language conversations).

---

On the gaming topic: Look at the newly released Hello Kitty Island Adventure on Apple Arcade. It is an exclusive and playable across iPad/iPhone/Mac/AppleTV. The quality of this game is unusual, it delivers an experience that equals/exceeds Nintendo's wildly popular Animal Crossing. This signals that Apple are refocusing on gaming in a new way: bringing popular game paradigms to Arcade in a compelling, exclusive way, and this perhaps forms an extension of Arcade bringing ad-free versions of the App Store's most popular titles. So while I think we're far off Apple's hardware being a destination for gaming enthusiasts, we're now definitely past the point of Apple pushing people with an itch for gaming onto other platforms.

faeriechangling3• 3 years ago

Phone gaming has been the biggest market in gaming for awhile, and Apple has long had some of the highest gaming revenues or any company. Phones are already more powerful than a switch although much less powerful than the steam deck.

It is a ceaseless source of bafflement for me how people continually treat Apple as though it’s not already one of the biggest players in the gaming world with an utterly massive library of games you can’t find on any console or on Steam.

Apple has recently made some real strides with making it easier to port games recently because of the need to port VR games to the Apple Vision Pro.

nedt• 3 years ago

They do have Nintendo games. They are just not very popular, because Nintendo chose to simplify them. You can use the Switch controller with your Apple devices, but they apps they made are just for simply touch control. Also AppleTV is not supported by the apps. But I guess that's more a decision from Nintendo, because they want their hardware to be used.

2OEH8eoCRo02• 3 years ago

No AV1 encode?

skrrtww2• 3 years ago

It's a phone. Does it really need AV1 encoding?

2OEH8eoCRo02• 3 years ago

Does it record video?

ksec5• 3 years ago

They might later add VVC Video encoder instead.

roland35• 3 years ago

1 gram lighter!

ricardobeat2• 3 years ago

206g -> 187g for the Pro

240g -> 221g for the Pro Max

pretext-12• 3 years ago

9% lighter Pro

8% lighter Pro Max

cromka3• 3 years ago

1 mm smaller, rather

falcolas10• 3 years ago

Ironically, this annoys me because I can't use any of my Apple 14 pro cases.

jonplackett3• 3 years ago

I wish they would go back to having S years and just keep the outside the same.

There is barely anything different this time and an S year would have made sense.

sgt2• 3 years ago

Haven't watched it yet, but I bought a 14 Pro just two weeks ago (well aware of the imminent 15 on its way). I guess secretly I was hoping that the difference is not huge. ;)

highwaylights2• 3 years ago

I'm assuming you got a really heavy discount anyway so don't feel bad.

The big standouts are camera enhancements and (significant) GPU enhancements for gaming.

sgt2• 3 years ago

Not a heavy one but a decent discount. So not too upset. I am sure some people somewhere bought without discount.

paxys6• 3 years ago

USB-C support was the worst kept secret in the world, so I hope you were anticipating it when you made your purchase.

checkyoursudo• 3 years ago

I bought a 13 mini just a few weeks ago. Pretty sure the salespeople were rolling their eyes. Might have been the last one left at the store.

skykooler• 3 years ago

I'm disappointed there's no 15 mini announced. Rather disappointing that the only phones that fit in a pocket these days are all Android - no choice left.

simbas• 3 years ago

Any details about USB-C? I bet this USB-C implementation is not standard compliant in a typical Apple way.

stouset2• 3 years ago

Which Apple device has shipped with a non-standard USB implementation?

drdaeman3• 3 years ago

Quite a stretch and not exactly a standardization issue (more like if something useful is implemented/supported or not), but lack of DisplayPort MST in MacBooks had upset some folks.

More on point - the speculation about real fast charging requiring Apple-blessed circuitry is - AFAIK - still neither proven nor refuted.

lowbloodsugar• 3 years ago

I’ve got a number of USB storage devices that work on my intel macs but none of my silicon macs. One was a brand associated with mac.

That could be because the devices themselves are not spec and the intel macs are more tolerant, but as a customer the result is the same: shit don’t work on m1.

falcolas10• 3 years ago

You're at least partially correct since they require a MFI approved cable to reach USB 3 speeds. Otherwise you're limited to USB 2 speeds.

chx3• 3 years ago

Any source to this?

Because I think Alex Agius Saliba will have an unkind word to Apple if they try to pull that shit.

piperswe• 3 years ago

Source? I've heard rumors but I don't think they mentioned MFi at all in this event.

DRW_2• 3 years ago

I can't find any reference to this on Apple's website. They simply they a USB3 cable is required to get USB3 speeds, which I assume they don't ship in the box.

Y-bar• 3 years ago

EU would have field day with that (if you were correct, which I bet you are not) considering they require standards-compliant USB-C by law.

ShakataGaNai2• 3 years ago

It charges via USB-C, it does USB 3 data if you have the Pro.

Now you can connect USB‑C gear like thumb drives, fast external storage, 4K displays, and microphones. And you can charge Apple Watch or AirPods from your iPhone.9
Charge up to 50% in around 30 minutes10 with the 20W USB‑C Power Adapter (sold separately).

Seems like totally bog standard USB-C, just like the rest of their devices.

dang• 3 years ago

Related ongoing thread:

iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37485290

minimaxir2• 3 years ago

Apple's continued focus on gaming image quality is weird (ray tracing?), since despite Apple Arcade the mobile market still is still dominated by freemium games with simple graphics / lower graphical requirements.

There are precisely two freemium games that take advantage of the power of the Apple Silicon chips: Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, which were coincidently the two released games highlighted. (it may be interesting to see what Ubisoft and Capcom put out but the I suspect they'll price their games too high)

It bodes well for a M3 Pro chip for the next MacBook Pros, though.

kmlx• 3 years ago

candy crush with ray tracing :)

photoGrant• 3 years ago

It's a way to increase profits in an area of R&D that's required for the AR side of things.

Gaming is an easily marketable profit funnel that directly relates with all the necessary advancements needed to pursue the Vision Pro/Visual Compute/LLM side of things. In my opinion, anyway.

jasoneckert• 3 years ago

Sometimes directions that don't make sense from a technical or market point of view are made with something much further in the future in mind. This could be the case here.

solarmist3• 3 years ago

VisionPro

Lorin• 3 years ago

Perhaps the improvements also benefit their AR/VR products? Could be a longer term play at hand.

theshrike7910• 3 years ago

This was my first thought too, Apple always plays the long game and that's why people keep saying "no innovation" after every single keynote :D

Stuff that was added today will pay of in 3-4 years after it has trickled down to enough users. Like the spatial camera, now it's a curiosity on the top-end model, but in 5 years it might be a standard feature in phones with great synergy with the Apple Vision non-pro model they just happen to release when there are enough devices to produce content for it.

GeekyBear11• 3 years ago

Apple's continued focus on gaming image quality is weird (ray tracing?), since despite Apple Arcade the mobile market still is still dominated by freemium games with simple graphics / lower graphical requirements.

They use the same GPU core design from handheld to desktop, so the improvement will apply everywhere as chips are updated.

I think their strategy is that iOS makes too much money for gaming companies to ignore, which means those companies are going to have an easy time reworking iOS games to target a mouse/keyboard/gamepad UI on Macs, since the two existing platforms (and even their upcoming AR/VR platform) have common APIs and CPU/GPU cores.

TomatoTomato• 3 years ago

It also can improve DX and make for easier ports downstream. If the new Assassin's Creed uses some ray tracing on their console version, they use the same technique on the iPhone.

minimaxir2• 3 years ago

The M3 chip is rumored to also use the 3nm process, so that's expected.

Someone• 3 years ago

I guess they need such hardware for the Apple Vision Pro, and are working with several heavily NDA-ed companies to get software out that uses it when that launches.

mezeek• 3 years ago

This is like Spatial Audio. So many things have been built and rolled out in support of Vision Pro. Obviously it'll be the A17 there too.

3cats-in-a-coat2• 3 years ago

Hint: the raytracing GPU engines rely on general purpose GPU compute.

It does raytracing because it has raw power. What you use this power for is another story. It can easily augment the neural engine for example.

Havoc2• 3 years ago

Apple's continued focus on gaming image quality is weird (ray tracing?)

Guessing it’s important for an eventual vision pro integration

bluSCALE43• 3 years ago

The second you can have competing app stores I see Steam opening shop and mobile gaming blowing up.

mortenjorck2• 3 years ago

Interesting to think about how many pieces are almost in place for this. The two big players in game engines have had a huge iOS presence for years, just for a different segment of the gaming market; PC game developers have had a few years now to optimize titles for the constraints of the Steam Deck; Apple's game porting toolkit was just announced this past WWDC…

If Valve gets the opportunity to gain a foothold on iOS, the landscape could change very quickly.

PedroBatista2• 3 years ago

The whole thing felt they were milking it to last 90min.

But the part where they compared their new GPU accelerated ray-tracing to be 4x faster than software ray-tracing was the most hilarious part. I thought software rendering was a thing that mostly stayed in the 90s, but apparently I was wrong enough that even deserved to be mentioned in a multi-million dollar Apple presentation.

New iPhone, better than the old one. OK cool.

ykl• 3 years ago

Ray tracing has been 100% software (as in, either entirely on the CPU or implemented in shader code or CUDA/OpenCL on the GPU) up until 2018, which is when the first hardware-accelerated ray tracing GPUs became widely available.

PedroBatista2• 3 years ago

That's why ray-tracing in games was not a thing up until 2018.

The context is games, which is what they've shown on the presentation to sell us the new iPhone.

xp843• 3 years ago

I also thought that was odd, with the 8fps on the left. Like, what iOS game are people playing with software raytracing at 8fps?

GpuIsLife• 3 years ago

You may be interested to know that Unreal Engine’s Nanite technology uses (mostly) software rasterisation.

jonplackett3• 3 years ago

Nanite isn't raytracing though, or even rendering. I think it's more like a pre-render thing to reduce polygon count.

GeekyBear11• 3 years ago

The most interesting thing to me is that switching to a new SOC process node gives you the option of bumping up performance or reducing power draw, and it sounds like Apple has once again chosen to reduce power draw.

It seems like other vendors have been going the "push performance no matter what it does to power draw and heat" route for a long time now.

lotsofpulp2• 3 years ago

I imagine the reasoning is that most people do not use the performance, but would value less need to charge the battery.

dmitrygr3• 3 years ago

Why run faster if you are already comfortably number one? It makes sense to focus on something that everyone wants improvement on: battery life.

kaba09• 3 years ago

To be honest, in general it does improve battery life if you are faster. Battery life is a race to CPU sleep mode, and if you finish the job faster, the more energy you can save.

ksec5• 3 years ago

and it sounds like Apple has once again chosen to reduce power draw

We will have to see. They have a 10% performance increase and I am betting there will be 5% coming from Clock Speed.

And it is not like Apple could push power draw any further as they have maxed out single core power draw. Unlike other competitor ( ARM / Snapdragon ) which has a much lower single core power draw figures and hence they try to push as much as possible.

GeekyBear11• 3 years ago

We will have to see. They have a 10% performance increase and I am betting there will be 5% coming from Clock Speed.

The big cores got faster, but the little ones did not.

the performance cores are 10 percent faster... the efficiency cores are more efficient rather than being faster

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/09/apples-new-iphone-15...

Which sounds to me like a new version of the big cores, but not of the little cores on a more power efficient process node.

However, as always, time will tell.

ko272• 3 years ago

Your conclusion is wrong. There is no difference in battery life if you compare to 14 Pro on their site.

awestroke• 3 years ago

Their website is not a reliable source for performance numbers. We'll have to wait for third party benchmarks

GeekyBear11• 3 years ago

More than one component in the device draws power. Did you see the part about the display getting twice as bright, for instance?

kaba09• 3 years ago

On the CPU game, apple is so far ahead that it might not even make sense to talk about other vendors. Apple could deliberately downclock their CPUs and still beat the shit out of any flagship android. Hell, their 3 years old lineup actually beats the current year’s top.

smoldesu8• 3 years ago

It mostly comes down to manufacturing processes. When you compare 5nm Apple hardware to 5nm hardware from other competitors, the power/performance disparity closes significantly. Since Apple is the biggest though, they can out-spend anyone else who tries to buy out the latest node right now. This has been the case since 2020, and seems to still hold true.

HatchedLake721• 3 years ago

The best part for me that wasn't mentioned, the slightly rounded corners!

I hate holding anything since iPhone 12 in my hands, the edges are sharp and cut into your fingers.

Every time I take iPhone X I'm just amazed how comfortable it is and what a step back was the iPhone 12 design.

sroussey4• 3 years ago

I like the flat side as the phone doesn’t slip out of my hand so easily, but definitely agree that the slight curving will make it feel better!

sneak• 3 years ago

On the contrary, I vastly prefer the 6/SE/13/14 design, as it doesn't rotate along the long axis as easily in my hand.

I was very happy when they abandoned the 10/11 design with the rounded edges.

I have very soft hands, and "cut into your fingers" seems pretty hyperbolic. The current 14 Pro edge design (typing this on one) seems perfectly adequate to me.

(The sharp points at the edges of the finger slot in the middle of the MBPs always surprised me with their pointyness, however. The last Intel MBP was particularly sharp, however the points have been softened a lot in M1/M2 land.)

deergomoo• 3 years ago

Visually I much prefer the squared off edges, but I agree. The 14 Pro is the first iPhone I’ve regulsrly used a case with because I just cannot keep hold of the damn thing—when the phone angles as I reach across the screen I guess the lack of surface area touching my hand means it sorta just pops out. I find it really bad ergonomically. Flat edges with rounded corners seems a nice middle ground.

What I really want is a Pro Mini. I bought a 12 mini because that year the hardware gap between Pro and not was very small. The battery sucked ass but it was a dream to hold.

hbn3• 3 years ago

The 14 Pro's edges are also worse because of how damn heavy the thing is.

The 15 Pro is said to be about 9% lighter thanks to the titanium, so hopefully that will alleviate some of that issue too.

bluSCALE43• 3 years ago

Love the mini. I hope Apple comes out with a mini every other year.

artursapek• 3 years ago

COOL! It looks exactly like my iPhone 14 Pro!

xhdueuchrv2• 3 years ago

Wait until you see an iPhone 13.

boarush3• 3 years ago

Assassin's Creed Mirage launching on iOS shows that Apple is taking gaming seriously. A large part of the presentation was talking about the new GPU and the newly developed shader architecture. It will be interesting to compare the numbers once the devices are available.

dahwolf2• 3 years ago

A large part as in 1 minute?

boarush3• 3 years ago

A large part as in the part of the presentation where Silicon was being talked about. GPU is the main focus of A17 Pro, with the performance cores being upto 10% faster and no significant numbers to show for the efficiency cores.

smoldesu8• 3 years ago

It'll be interesting sure, but porting struggles have never really been about the numbers. Porting to iPhone takes time because the API is starkly different from consoles or Linux/Windows systems. Apple won't publish your game unless it's using Metal, there's no way around it. Games like Tomb Raider and Resident Evil have been touted for the same purposes in the past, but they never signaled any major internal shifts.

boarush3• 3 years ago

I think if Ubisoft will see good adoption from the mobile gamers, it may very well be the push for them to consider porting their game library over to iOS. After all, the mobile market is pretty damn huge.

mikkqu• 3 years ago

Does that mean that iPhone 15 Pro camera has the same physical module as iPhone 14 Pro, apart from some software changes? Or did they release a wrong data for their comparator on apple website?

https://pasteboard.co/2vRyDDgKlHCV.png

sva_• 3 years ago

The data must be wrong because the announcement speaks of 5x optical zoom.

drdaeman3• 3 years ago

If I got it right, 5x optical zoom is only available in 15 Pro Max, not the normal-sized 15 Pro.

sambe• 3 years ago

I got exactly the same impression. They announced things like improved low light performance (but same aperture).

cromka3• 3 years ago

I got the same exact conclusion.

noahtallen• 3 years ago

It's not the same physical module. The physical aspects they list (megapixels, aperature) are the same, but the actual 48MP sensor they use is improved.

"iPhone 15 pro features a more advanced 48MP main camera, with an even larger sensor than iPhone 15 [and therefore iPhone 14 Pro]. The camera includes a new nanoscale coating to reduce lens flare."

See here: https://www.youtube.com/live/ZiP1l7jlIIA?si=FFSYTVqY0unVRSqu...

They also mention it enabling new focal lengths and better low light performance.

treprinum• 3 years ago

The EU prices of iPhone make them luxury objects, there is barely any meaningful pricing difference between the cheapest iPhone 15 (950EUR) and iPhone 15 Pro (1200EUR).

randomdata• 3 years ago

there is barely any meaningful pricing difference between the cheapest iPhone 15 (950EUR) and iPhone 15 Pro (1200EUR).

Out of interest, I picked a random car to compare with. Based on the figures made available on the website, the base model was $39,347. The fully-loaded model was $49,243. That's the same ~25% difference Apple is using here.

Whether or not it is meaningful, it does seem to be in the realm of being typical.

mplewis2• 3 years ago

How does this compare to the prices of other phones which receive 6+ years of manufacturer software support?

xp843• 3 years ago

I'm excited for the most silly pedestrian reason: Because I detest the Apple 'DRM' chip that is implicit in Lightning even when used just for charging. I call it "DRM'd Electricity."

Choices of cables we've had for the whole existence of the iPhone:

• Apple cables, $20-30, not even nice, cheap plastic with poor strain relief, work reliably until they succumb easily to damage

• Licensed (like Belkin), $20-30, nicer, work reliably

• 1,000 brands on Amazon, etc. Not licensed, 10% DOA rate, sometimes just stop working. Physically nearly always nicer than Apple. $3-12.

I'm really excited to be able to just have many of the same charging cables everywhere, and to buy them for $5 or less. Even buying cheap cables, I've never once had a USB-C (or even the terrible micro-B) cable fail to work.

Note: I actually feel just as strongly even though I only even use a cable in the car, and charge with "Magsafe" everywhere else. I just hate Lightning that much. Also, I could easily afford the Apple cables, but it would physically pain me to waste that much money knowing it's purely additional margin for Apple.

willseth3• 3 years ago

I wouldn't get excited yet. TMK they are only required to implement the connector and certain charging requirements, not any particular complete USB protocol spec, so it seems likely they'll continue the same MFi program over USB-C cables.

duskwuff3• 3 years ago

I would be extremely surprised if Apple introduced a requirement for specially marked USB-C cables for the iPhone. The iPad already uses USB-C, and works with any USB-C cable.

theshrike7910• 3 years ago

But now you'll get into the fun USB-C -land, where two USB-C cables can have wildly different capabilities with no external way to check it :)

One cable might only support power, one might only be for data and one supports USB-PD up to 120W. How can you know? By trying them all!

wmf4• 3 years ago

Buy good cables and throw the others away. (You can't really trust any cable you didn't buy anyway because of O.MG.)

mintone• 3 years ago

I agree with the sentiment of anti-DRM but Anker (who are highly reputable) have been doing licensed cables for <$10 for years.

eclipticplane2• 3 years ago

and the thinnest borders on iPhone.

I must be the only consumer who despises the thin edges on my current iPhone 14 pro. I'd like to be able to hold my phone and not randomly trigger edge-sensitive gestures like "scroll to top" (that you can't disable!).

etrautmann2• 3 years ago

I agree, but that’s mostly addressed by putting a case on it.

MaxikCZ• 3 years ago

So "You are holding it wrong!"?

eclipticplane2• 3 years ago

Selection bias, but when my phone has no case, I never drop it. When I have a case on it, I drop it all the time.

ksec5• 3 years ago

Same here. I dont mind the larger trackpad with smaller edge on the new MacBook, or the thin edge on iPhone, providing they can make the false sensitive trigger at 100% accuracy. Not 99%, or 99.9999%, but infinitely close to 100%. I am not sure even sure if that is possible. But right now it isn't. And the random trigger is annoying enough to side with you on the subject matter.

Simulacra• 3 years ago

I have never gotten used the notch. It ruined it visually for me.

theshrike7910• 3 years ago

On phones it's tolerable, because you can kinda palm it and just use the edges of your hand to hold it.

But tiny bezels on tablets? Oof. Like the lates Galaxy Tab. How are you supposed to hold it without pressing at least 5 icons accidentally?

tracerbulletx2• 3 years ago

A consumer stereo camera in a significant portion of the populations pocket is a big deal imo. Going to make the volume of VR content much higher.

seydor• 3 years ago

a 360 camera , or at least the ability to take 360 photos easily would make a bigger difference

BudaDude• 3 years ago

180 camera makes more sense at this stage. 360-degree cameras on a phone would be weird when recording with the phone in hand. It would be better on a tripod, but I think Apple is trying not to complicate it unless professionals want it.

ffitch• 3 years ago

From what I gather the distance between the left and right lens will be less than an inch. Technically it’s still stereo, but don’t get your hopes high.

tracerbulletx2• 3 years ago

They didn't say much about it but hopefully they can infer enough to do a good job. You can already do mildly ok fake depth maps from a single image. I also would like to know if this is going to be somehow locked down to Apple Vision or a format we could use in a Quest3 or other VR headset.

bpye2• 3 years ago

They have depth with the LIDAR sensor as well - so I wonder if that enables them to pull of some trick to make it more convincing.

tbenst• 3 years ago

It’s more about the difference in magnitude of the lenses. This also gives you depth information when combined.

sgjohnson• 3 years ago

Beginning September 18, iCloud+ will offer two new plans: 6TB for $29.99 (U.S.) per month and 12TB for $59.99 (U.S.) per month.

Finally. I mean, 2TB is enough for me for now, but I know people with 5 people in their Apple Family with the 2TB tier absolutely maxed out.

Night_Thastus2• 3 years ago

Sticking the 23-year-old USB 2.0 port on a device that is made in 2023 and costs $1k is inexcusable. [non-pro]

There is absolutely no excuse when we're talking about a device at this price point and this age.

It doesn't matter that it wouldn't be fully exercised by most users. These are premium products at a premium price point. It's insulting that they would cheap out like that.

inickt• 3 years ago

The Pros do use USB3? Or are you talking about the regular 15? I still agree with you, but unfortunately the vast majority of regular iPhone users aren’t transferring large files over a cable and won’t care.

Night_Thastus2• 3 years ago

The regular 15. And 3.0 also supports much faster charging.

Maybe most won't care, but I still think it's disgusting and pathetic for a company this size with products this expensive to cheap out by using USB 2.0.

mplewis2• 3 years ago

The vast majority of people aren't transferring data to and from their phone via USB cable.

Gigachad• 3 years ago

Unless you are doing some kind of video production with your phone, there is no real reason to plug it in. And anyone doing that would have the pro.

brokencode2• 3 years ago

It makes sense though. The non-pro models are using last year’s A16 SOC without any updates. I assume they’ll get USB 3 next year when the SOC is updated. I’d be much more disappointed if that’s not the case though.

masklinn4• 3 years ago

I'd assume the non-pros will remain on USB2, and that serves as a segmentation feature. Especially since only the pros can shoot in ProRAW and ProRES.

On iPads, the "base" iPad is on USB2 speeds, the mini supports 5Gbps, the air 10, and only the pro supports 40Gb USB4. And while SoC differences could explain differences between the iPad (A14) and Mini (A15), the 5th gen Air uses the same SoC as the 5th gen Pro which already did support 40Gb USB4. So it's not an SoC limitation.

Although they ended up putting the 48MP main camera on the non-pro and I thought that'd remain pro-exclusive as well so...

fomine3• 3 years ago

They could implement USB3 5Gbps on A15 if it was on future roadmap.

acchow• 3 years ago

Where are you seeing this? Their product page for the 15 non-pro says it uses the same cable you use to charge your mac.

It also says "The included USB‑C Charge Cable is compatible with AirPods Pro (2nd generation) with MagSafe Charging Case (USB‑C)."

madeofpalk2• 3 years ago

USB-C is the physical connector, and on the iPhone 15 it carries USB 2.0 for data.

alanwreath• 3 years ago

I’m interested to see what depth of field can be replicated with lenses so close together. 3d (spatial) videos is the one feature I would have bought a new phone for, but given it is not available day one I’m a bit skeptical that an unproven lense set up will replicate well to an unproven vr set up.

Syzygies• 3 years ago

I want to see a scanner app that nails flattening out book pages. The spatial data is needed to triangulate depth accurately.

runeks• 3 years ago

That should be possible already with the LIDAR, I think.

edandersen• 3 years ago

USB-C supporting writing ProRes video and photo files directly to external storage is something I did not see coming.

That's Apple actually undercutting their own storage upgrades... what is going on?

jonplackett3• 3 years ago

Only for the 0.01% of users who want to do that.

Also, they kinda had to announce _something_ new this phone could do.

amluto• 3 years ago

If you are recording videos of any length with ProRes, you will rapidly run out or space on even the largest capacity iPhone. So I think Apple is enabling a new use case more than cannibalizing sales of lower storage models.

pretext-12• 3 years ago

They also increased the smallest storage size for the 15 Pro Max to 256 GB, which is a welcome change.

migreenberg• 3 years ago

They just dropping the 156GB Pro Max SKU. The 15 Pro Max's starting price is 100 USD more than the 14 Pro Max's starting price.

satysin• 3 years ago

Indeed. It effectively drops the price in Europe by €130 (if you wanted a 256GB model)

iPhone 15 Pro Max 256GB is €1479

iPhone 14 Pro Max 256GB was €1609

That's quite nice and surprising given other companies such as Sony and Microsoft increasing their console hardware prices in Europe but not the US.

I was expecting the same pricing and storage configurations as last year at the very best but a bump in the base level storage while keeping the price the same as last year that is better than I expected.

dan-robertson• 3 years ago

Think it’s basically for actual professional uses for recording video (iPhone’s often get used as small high-quality cameras that can be used in places that larger cameras cannot). If you record at 4k in ProRes you will run at (potentially a lot) over 1GB/min. Adding another TB is not going to be that big a deal. I assume the main limiting thing before was having a reliable way to transfer the data out rather than some desire to prevent users from doing it.

alanbernstein• 3 years ago

Hoping this inspires Android manufacturers to finally adopt the fantastical technological innovation of "another button".

liminalsunset3• 3 years ago

Samsung used to provide this on their Galaxy phones. They called it the "Bixby" button and unfortunately for a while, only hacky solutions to remap it for general usage were available.

Seems like on the latest generations, they dropped this feature as well, so it's interesting to see Apple revive it.

The biggest problem with this "innovation" is going to be teaching my parents how to use it and that "pressing the button doesn't always put the phone in silent anymore"

bradgessler2• 3 years ago

Anybody know what Titanium color of the Pro devices match the Ultra watch?

layer82• 3 years ago

Apple has a history of inconsistent colors between models for the same color names, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s no exact match.

lwhalen2• 3 years ago

Still can't install uBlock Origin or any other firefox add-on? Deal-breaker. Sorry Apple, that's one more $1200 phone you're not selling me.

mandelken• 3 years ago

You can install uBlock Origin and other firefox/chrome add-ons on the Orion iOS browser[1].

[1] https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#ublock

lwhalen2• 3 years ago

That is good to know, thank you, but why must I use _an entirely different browser_ for this? (Rhetorical question, I know - 'because it's Apple and they hate anything not of their beautiful walled garden')

overcast• 3 years ago

Oh good, 128GB base storage, for 48MP camera + 4k@60 Pro Res video.

askonomm• 3 years ago

I'd imagine most people offload them to iCloud, and don't keep copies on the iPhone. At least that's what I do.

ShakataGaNai2• 3 years ago

Yea, but you have USB3 high speed, record pro-res directly onto, external storage.

So you can spend $100 on a 1TB external drive (rather than $100 on another 128gb of internal storage) and you're way better off. If you're use case is 4k60 ProRes, this makes WAY more sense than recording locally.

Arn_Thor• 3 years ago

They didn’t say “external storage”, they said “a Mac”. Could be a significant distinction

liminalsunset3• 3 years ago

Hopefully they don't block full resolution ProRes recording like they did on the 13 series. The 128GB version of the 13 and iirc the 14 was only able to record 1080p60 ProRes, regardless of available space

pradn2• 3 years ago

The reduction in weight is a major feature - my iPhone 14 Pro routinely strains my hand.

MuffinFlavored3• 3 years ago

iPhone 14 Pro weight: 206g

iPhone 15 Pro weight: 188g

8.7%

bpye2• 3 years ago

For what it’s worth, the 11 Pro was also 188g

hbn3• 3 years ago

When the 14 Pro came out I bought one day 1 to replace my 12 mini.

I figured the size would be an issue, and I definitely didn't like it as much as the 12 mini. But the worst part I didn't even foresee was the weight. It was SUPER uncomfortable to use one-handed, I was constantly terrified it would fall out of my hand. I ended up returning it and buying a 13 mini.

The switch to titanium is a good move. Even barring the weight, while the stainless steel is certainly eye-catching and looks great out of the box, as soon as you use the thing it's covered in smudges, and infamously is prone to getting covered in scratches over time.

cs702• 3 years ago

TL;DR:

1. USB-C. Yay!

2. New colors. Apple repeatedly refers to the colors as "stunning," but they look like regular colors to me.

3. Incremental hardware and software improvements. Pretty much what you expect every year. (Yes, we're all spoiled.)

losvedir• 3 years ago

I missed the presentation but with talk of these new stereoscopic cameras did they mention anything about Apple Vision Pro? Ever since that keynote with the kind of dystopian example of wearing a headset during the kid's birthday, I assumed the future would be the next iPhone taking the "memories" (as I think they called them). Was that mentioned at all today?

edit: oh, neat, yeah I missed it at first but it's right in the linked press release:

Coming later this year, iPhone 15 Pro will add a new dimension to video capture with the ability to record spatial video for Apple Vision Pro.

MuffinFlavored3• 3 years ago

What time on September 15th can you pre-order? I forgot what time I had to wake up early for my iPhone 14 Pro. I think it was 6am Eastern?

rootusrootus• 3 years ago

I haven't heard an official announcement, but in the past it has been 5am Pacific, so 8am Eastern.

klinquist• 3 years ago

8AM eastern. I recommend you go to store.apple.com and "pre-pre order" which you can do right now (pick phone, verify carrier). Then you just 'check out' on Friday.

kantord3• 3 years ago

Great that they finally include USB-C. I am waiting for

- Any browser engine allowed - 3rd party "app stores" allowed - Allowed to simulate iPhone without owning or having to use a Mac

before switching from Android

alberth• 3 years ago

You're asking for software updates, not hardware updates.

Today is a hardware day.

WWDC (June) is their software day.

kantord3• 3 years ago

true, I will consider switching if the same things are solved for this model in the future

kalleboo• 3 years ago

1 is going to hand the web over to Google and kill the open web

2 is going to happen eventually thanks to the EU

3 never going to happen

xhruso003• 3 years ago

You underestimate the power of "defaults". Also one should question Apple why they don't ship Safari on Windows/Linux. They have all the resources available if they care. EU regulates and Apple is here to blame. Protecting their revenues (WebKit). It's only surprising it took this long to regulate. On the other hand US government is laughable at not doing any pro-consumer choices and getting bribes/sudden turns etc. EU here is leading here (protecting customers instead of companies)

heisenzombie• 3 years ago

I'm mostly interested in the manufacturing technology -- seems like they're doing some kind of friction/ultrasonic/diffusion welding between the titanium frame and the aluminium insides.

That's a notoriously difficult weld to make: https://doi.org/10.1177/14644207211010839

I would love to know what process they're using and how they've got it reliable!

buildbot• 3 years ago

Apple is fairly silent on these kinds of things, but it really is impressive how much they invest in leading edge manufacturing - huge CNC factories, this insane mixed metal weld, laser precision drilling…

gigel82• 3 years ago

No details on that USB3 external storage. Any specifics? Can I -for example- attach an USB3 NVMe enclosure (RTL9210B) and transfer (move) photos / videos from the internal storage?

That's one of the few remaining reasons for carrying around a laptop when going on vacations with family (to dump photos from the phones when they fill up).

mleonhard• 3 years ago

The Pro lineup is built to last, combining the strength of titanium with the toughest back glass in a smartphone and the industry-leading Ceramic Shield on the front.

The back panel is made of glass. This is a user-hostile design choice. Apple tries to gas-light us, claiming that it's a "Durable Design". This is deception. I hope FTC sues them for false advertising.

A real durable design would have a durable back (metal, plastic, or composite) and a raised lip around the screen. I would buy such an iPhone immediately and gleefully use it without a case.

andrewmunsell• 3 years ago

Given companies are allowed to advertise waterproof-ness and wholesale deny warranty claims when any water indicators inside the phone are triggered, I don’t think the FTC is going to do much

supertrope2• 3 years ago

The market has spoken. Rugged phones don't sell. Or people have compensated by buying a case. It is very normal to see a phone with smashed front or rear glass (1), or a degraded battery. A worn out battery is often part of people's rationalization in buying an entirely new phone. At least on the operating system side Apple is ironically leading the industry. The remainder of the smartphone industry that's not Samsung or Apple churns out disposable products so it's a low bar to clear.

(1) https://www.theonion.com/new-iphone-geared-towards-college-a...

pharmakom• 3 years ago

The iPhone is designed to be used with a case. That’s why they make no effort to remove the camera bump.

adrianmsmith2• 3 years ago

The Pro lineup is built to last, [bunch of physical attributes]

Having hardware which lasts is good, but they also need to make sure the software lasts. A phone is hardware + software, both need to last for the phone to last.

I know Apple is much better at this than Android, but still, they could be even better. My iPhone X does everything I need, physically it's still in pristine condition (so well done to Apple for that), but they're going to drop software support soon. Meaning no security updates, and apps will eventually stop supporting the old OS and thus the phone.

andz• 3 years ago

It's a shame that the 8/X isn't getting a proper feature update, but you should still be fine in terms of security updates. Apple released 12.5.7 earlier this year which is compatible with the 5S — a phone that's now ten years old. Apple has consistently provided security updates for it each year since its release.

solarmist3• 3 years ago

Security updates will continue, just not iOS 17.

yieldcrv• 3 years ago

This really compliments the Apple Vision Pro! When they debuted the vision they demonstrated that it could also make content to be viewed on the vision, which was a disaster! It was clear there should be a dedicated device for recording. The iphone 15 pro is that!

instagib• 3 years ago

For the gpu: Really gonna need fps limiters. So many games run hot and are unplayable without them.

Low power mode helps but a cpu limiter like when jailbroken would be good.

xhruso003• 3 years ago

AV1 HW decoder on Apple A17 means it's also coming to M3 MacBooks. My only wish is that AV1 HW encoder will be added to M3 MB Pros. So far no reason for many people to upgrade from M1

bythckr• 3 years ago

I don't get the logic of removing the mute toggle switch. It is very convenient to put the phone in silent. Didn't have to open the phone. Plus it was easy to check if the phone was silent by just looking for the orange marker.

They should have first turned the volume buttons to action button. I dont use the volume button.

okrad• 3 years ago

Not sure about iOS 17 and the 15Pro but the haptics are different in iOS 16 and the 14Pro when flicking the switch back and forth. Unmute I get not haptics and Mute gets a stern triple shake. If they maintain something like that you should still be able to no look it. In my opinion, I like the customizability.

Apple iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max

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